Any improvements made to the structure of computer hardware that facilitate miniaturization, profile-slimming, simplified structure, portability, or reduction of cost is highly valuable for the industry. In view of this, the present invention is directed at realizing all of these benefits in the design of a hard drive connecting device for a notebook computer.
The structure of a conventional notebook computer primarily consists of a main board, hard drive, and battery installed inside of a case, wherein the connection of the hard drive and the main board is generally established by fixing a hard drive connecting device provided on the main board to one side of the preset hard drive bay of the case, whereby the hard drive connecting device connects with the hard drive to provide electrical connection therebetween. Related techniques of connecting a hard drive with a notebook PC has been disclosed in Taiwan Utility Patent No. 426177 and 584223 with details described below.
FIGS. 1 and 2 depict a case of a conventional notebook PC 1 provided with a preset hard drive bay 11 for installing a hard drive 2 therein, wherein one side of the hard drive bay 11 is disposed with a hard drive connecting device 12 for connecting to a main board (not shown), said hard drive 2 being electrically connected to said hard drive connecting device 12 by a connecting head 21, and is further coupled with a lid body 14 to enclose said hard drive bay 11 and secure said hard drive.
Accordingly, the hard drive 2 installed in the hard drive bay 11 requires manual forward and backward movements to plug/pull the connecting head 21 in/out of said hard drive connecting device 12. Since the limited space of the hard drive bay 11 affects the convenience of manual operation by human fingers, it is necessary to additionally install a fastening mechanism 3 that connects to the rear side of the hard drive 2, and also a protruding body 13 correspondingly positioned at both sides of the fastening mechanism 3 in the hard drive bay 11, such that the hard drive 2 can be detached from the hard drive connecting device using the fastening mechanism 3 as shown in FIG. 3.
As can be seen from the hard drive connecting technique disclosed above for a notebook PC, the space of said hard drive bay 11 has to be made relatively larger than the actual volume of the hard drive 2 in order to accommodate the space required for installing the fastening mechanism 3 and the protruding body 13, as well as the operational space required for manually moving forward and backward to accomplish the connection and disconnection. However, such a design not only occupies much space in the case 1, but it also further limits circuit configuration of the internal main board, posing an obstacle to the further miniaturization of notebook PCs.
Moreover, the disposal of the hard drive 2 in the hard drive bay 11 necessitates the forward and backward movements to push in and pull out of the hard drive bay 11, which easily causes distortion of the hard drive connecting device 12 or even detachment from the side of the hard drive bay 11 or the main board due to the force exerted, resulting in electrical disconnection between the hard drive 2 and the main board that seriously affects the reliability of the notebook PC.
Therefore, there is a need for developing an improved hard drive connecting device for a notebook computer that can overcome the drawbacks of prior art techniques as mentioned above.